We launched a new campaign today, another step in our efforts to help prevent Fracking in Britain.

We’re highlighting a largely unknown fact; that while only 16% of Briton’s support the idea of Fracking (it is easily the most unpopular form of energy ever) - some 60% of Briton’s are actually funding the Fracking industry through their energy bills.

That’s because four of the Big Six are supporters of Fracking - British Gas EDF Energy e.on and ScottishPower . The other 'big two' - npower and SSE are perhaps complicit in their silence on the issue as are pretty much all other independent suppliers - even the green ones.

As far as I know ecotricity has the only ‘frack free’ promise (secured contractually though our supply chain), but we do more than that.

For me the boycott of South Africa was a powerful instrument of change, it helped bring down Apartheid, because people stopped supporting it with their food bills. We could do the same with Fracking. The vast majority of us think it’s a bad thing to do, it’s incredibly unpopular - and Britain’s energy suppliers need to feel that.

So our campaign is a call to boycott those four companies that are investing in Fracking - and actually those that are just quietly complicit.

Our energy bills can be an instrument for change._________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

27th January 2017
Could your household gas come from wildflower rich meadows, like this Culm Grassland at Knowstone Moor, Devon? Photo: Col Ford and Natasha de Vere via Flickr (CC BY).
Could your household gas come from wildflower rich meadows, like this Culm Grassland at Knowstone Moor, Devon? Photo: Col Ford and Natasha de Vere via Flickr (CC BY).
Just imagine: gas for your cooking and heating made by composting home-grown British grass, writes Almuth Ernsting. What's not to like? Well, it would need almost all the UK's grassland to match our gas demand, leaving cows and sheep to starve or forcing them into sheds to eat foreign-grown feeds. And methane leakage could easily wipe out any climate benefit.

Turning most UK grasslands over to biomethane production would all but end livestock grazing, and make the UK almost entirely dependent either on meat and dairy imports, or on animal feed imports for domestic factory farms.

At the end of last year, Ecotricity announced that they had found an alternative to fracking: green gas from grass, "grown on marginal farmland, of which Britain has enough to heat almost every home".

Ecotricity's bioenergy vision looks far more attractive than many others: it does not involve importing any feedstock, converting food to energy, or cutting down any trees.

Instead, Ecotricity wants to see millions of hectares of low-biodiversity grasslands restored to species-rich flowering meadows which would support wildflowers and the pollinators and many other species that depend on them.

With 97% of England's and 90% of Scotland's species-rich grassland having been lost since the 1940s, this seems an enticing idea. The mown grass would be turned first into silage, then into biogas, and then be upgraded to biomethane, which would be fed into the National Gas Grid.

Biofuelwatch usually investigates destructive bioenergy investments, often by corporations or start-up companies with little regard for people or the environment. We decided to investigate Ecotricity's proposal for a very different reason: we wanted to find out whether such an attractive proposition, made by a company with an excellent environmental track record, might indeed be able to deliver genuinely low-carbon and sustainable bioenergy.

The land take: 'just' 10 million hectares

The biggest problem with bioenergy is always its land footprint: Generating one unit of energy from plants requires many times more land than generating it from any other source of energy, including wind and solar power. We therefore asked how much land would be required to replace all natural gas currently used to heat UK homes at present.

Just one peer-reviewed study seems to have been published on this topic and its key land use figure closely resembles information contained in Ecotricity's successfully planning application for a 'green gas mill' near Winchester.

By using the figure in the study and Government figures for UK natural gas use for heating, we calculated that replacing all of that gas with biomethane from grass would require at least 10.2 million hectares of land.

Ecotricity claims that, by 2035, they could replace all gas used for home heating by using 5 million hectares of land for grass, but their estimate relies on the assumption that domestic gas use will fall by around 50% between now and 2035.

But this is a very optimistic assumption, given that the Government has all but abolished support for the home energy efficiency measures and solar roofs. The only driver behind falling domestic gas use which they have not removed is fuel poverty.

This area, 10.2 million hectares, is equivalent to 92% of the UK's grassland area, and is more than double the UK's area of cropland.

What about the livestock?

Turning most UK grasslands over to biomethane production would all but end livestock grazing, at a time when UK meat and dairy consumption are rising. It would make the UK almost entirely dependent either on meat and dairy imports, or on animal feed imports for domestic factory farms.

Intensive livestock farming, including growing soya and other feed, is a major cause of deforestation, particularly in Latin America. Excess nitrogen from factory farms and dense cattle ranches pollutes water and harms biodiversity as well as the climate (via nitrous oxide emissions).

However biodiverse and climate friendly the UK impacts of 'green gas from grass' might be, the indirect greenhouse gas emissions and impacts on biodiverse ecosystems would be anything but benign.

Ecotricity's vision of flowering meadows grown for biomethane in the UK seems highly unlikely, too: to maximise yields and thus income, farmers will have to select the highest-yielding grass species, use nitrogen fertilisers which, even if they are made from biogas residues, will still reduce species richness, and they will likely have to use herbicides, too. Maximising grass silage yields is not compatible with managing grasslands for wildlife.

So, the indirect impacts on biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions are likely to be severe.

The fugitive methane problem

What about the direct greenhouse gas emissions from biomethane plants? Nitrogen fertilisers are the main reason why atmospheric levels of the powerful greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) are rising worldwide. And compared to most 'energy crops' for biofuels or biogas, biomethane from grass would result in lower N2O emissions.

Grass requires much less nitrogen fertilisers than crops, and residues from biogas digestion can replace some nitrogen fertilisers, cutting nitrous oxide emissions from fertiliser production, though not eliminating such emissions from soils. Furthermore, the proposed biomethane plants would be small enough to keep transport distances and thus transport fuel use down.

Unfortunately, however, producing biogas and upgrading it to biomethane carries a different and potentially serious climate risk: that of methane leaks. Methane is 28 times as powerful as carbon dioxide over a 100-year period, so any significant methane losses will not only cancel out any greenhouse gas savings from 'green gas from grass', but could turn it into a high-carbon fuel.

Methane can leak from silage clamps, from biogas digesters and from the plants in which the biogas is upgraded. Methane leaks from biogas digesters range from 0.1% to 6%. The technology which Ecotricity wants to use to upgrade the biogas is designed for 1-1.5% methane leakage, though a Swedish study published in 2003 reported 10% of methane leaking from an upgrading plant.

Methane leaks, of course, are a major concern for fracking, too, with one study suggesting a 12% leakage rate from US fracking. Any fuel associated with significant methane leaks - even a 'green' one - is bad news for the climate.

Leaks from biogas and biomethane production can be minimised with good practice, but without any requirement to monitor them, there are no guarantees of that happening. We are concerned that Ecotricity has not acknowledged methane leakage as a serious concern to be addressed, either on their website or in their successful planning application for a first plant of this type.

The limits of photosynthesis

Ultimately, Ecotricity's 'green gas' vision must fail because it comes up against the fundamental limits of photosynthesis: no plant converts as much solar radiation to chemical energy as sugar cane growing in the tropics, which can convert up to 2.4% of the energy from the sun. In the temperate UK climate, the maximum is 1.3%. Much of that energy is then lost during conversion to bioenergy.

For example, biogas contains around 45% carbon dioxide, all of which is vented straight into the atmosphere during biomethane production. Solar PV is of course most efficient closer to the equator, yet even in the UK, it easily achieves a conversion rate of 9%.

This is the reason why bioenergy will always require far more land than any other source of energy, including wind and solar power.

It's also why sustainable large-scale bioenergy will always remain wishful thinking. There is a case to be made for biogas from genuine waste, such as sewage or food waste (as long as it does not compete with composting), but these sources will only ever be able to supply a very small fraction of current energy use.

But we shouldn't be too tough on Ecotricity. Clearly, it would be far better if the company was to continue investing in wind turbines alone. Sadly, this choice has been taken away from them by the Government, which has removed subsidies from virtually all new onshore wind as well as solar capacity, and which has skewed planning rules in England against wind power and in favour of fracking.

ECOTRICITY boss Dale Vince has defended a decision to to take a £3.2 million interest-free loan from his company amid criticism that the move amounted to “a tax avoidance arrangement.”

Three weeks ago, Ecotricity announced it was donating £250,000 to the Labour Party’s election campaign.

In addition, £20,000 has been donated to the campaign to get Labour’s David Drew elected in Stroud.

As part of his party’s manifesto, Labour leader Ed Miliband is targeting tax avoidance by business moguls.

During a visit to Stroud earlier this month he reiterated his intention to crack down on the issue.

And last week Mr Miliband challenged David Cameron over what he called ‘dodgy donors’ to the Conservatives.

The accusations against Mr Vince were made in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday and were based on the latest Ecotricity accounts posted on Friday at Companies House.

However, Mr Vince has staunchly defended himself over accusations the loan tax avoidance arrangement.

A spokesman for Ecotricity confirmed that Mr Vince had received £3.2 million in director’s loans but added: “It is a short term loan, properly made with tax paid on it, and to suggest it’s anything else is simply mudslinging. The loan is expected to be repaid in the next 12 months.”

Company tax was paid on the loan to HMRC and income tax paid on the benefit-in-kind but Mr Vince is not paying income tax on the money.

Speaking to the Telegraph, Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant and tax expert, said: “What the loan does is potentially advance money at a lower rate of tax than would be the case if he was paid a dividend or a salary now.

“Deferring when the tax is paid is one of the major methods of tax avoidance.

“This therefore looks to be a tax avoidance arrangement.”

Apart from paying a much smaller sum of money as a benefit-in-kind it gives Mr Vince an income which he does not have to pay personal tax on. The company loan is entirely legal and relatively routine.

Reckoned to be Britain’s wealthiest hippy, Dale Vince can be pretty pleased with his £100m fortune.

Some of his customers appear less happy. For Mr Vince’s company is accused of hiking up prices at electric car charging points while at the same time ploughing millions of pounds into his football club.

On Monday, Ecotricity, which has the monopoly on motorway service station electric charging points, will introduce a new pricing scheme for electric vehicles.

Critics claim the new charges will make it as expensive to charge up an electric car as put petrol in a conventional, fuel-efficient vehicle.

They even complain that Mr Vince would be better advised diverting the money spent by Ecotricity on his football club to reduce the cost of his rapid charging points.

The most recent accounts show Ecotricity spent almost £5m buying up 490,000 shares in Forest Green Rovers at a cost of £10 each. “The investment was subsequently written down to £nil as the subsidiary continues to be loss making,” stated the 2016 accounts.

The club’s turnover was just over £1m with losses of almost £2.5 million.

Forest Green Rovers, based in Gloucestershire close to Ecotricity’s headquarters in Stroud, was promoted for the first time in its history to the Football League at the end of this season. It is the world’s only vegan football club, selling Quorn Pies at half time rather than meat ones. Cow’s milk in half-time tea is similarly banned.

Some however feel Ecotricity should be concentrating on driving down its prices for customers to encourage more electric vehicles rather than frittering away money on Mr Vince’s passion for football.

FairFuelUK, a group that rails against the “fleecing of drivers at the pumps and sockets”, said: “The already murky world of pump pricing is not helped by opportunistic and confusing charging prices for electric cars.

“The new, humble, consensus-driven Government needs to recognise that cleaner emissions should be linked with lower vehicle running costs, and definitely not Ecotricity’s aspirations to reach the Premier League.”

Mr Vince, who was appointed club chairman in 2010 after becoming the major shareholder, has enjoyed a remarkable rags-to-riches transformation.

He was a hippy drop-out living in a converted ex-military vehicle when in the late 1990s he had the brilliant idea of starting up a wind energy business. Since then he has turned Ecotricity into a leading green energy brand with a football club attached.
Mr Vince was appointed club chairman in 2010
Mr Vince was appointed club chairman in 2010 Credit: PA

The company, which sells green electricity to tens of thousands of households, has the near monopoly on rapid car-charging points at motorway service stations through another subsidiary company Electric Highway, which also made a near £1m loss, according to its 2016 accounts.

Ecotricity’s pricing change also exposes the bewildering array of different costs for charging up an electric car.

While petrol or diesel is charged by the litre, a variety of companies running electric charging points deploy myriad pricing structures. Dozens of different tariffs exist, prompting the Department for Transport to launch a review in an attempt to simplify the system for consumers.

Ecotricity, which used to offer free charging to encourage the take up of electric cars, will change to its new tariff from tomorrow. Motorists will have to pay £3 connection fee and then a further 17 pence for every unit of electricity used (kWh). Previously the company charged a flat fee of £6 for 30 minutes of charge.

Ecotricity insists the price change will benefit customers but Zap-Map, a website which offers a consumer guide to charging points, has estimated that for a Nissan Leaf, the cost of charging it for 30 minutes will rise from £6 to £7.08.

Motorists have complained at the pricing change. One posted on the Zap-Map website: “He [Dale Vince] has now kicked his loyal customers in the teeth with a ridiculous price rise to £7.25 for the same amount of energy.

“He obviously wants to put all his limited resources into Green Gas and his football team.”

The RAC Foundation, the motoring think tank, estimates it will cost about 9p a mile to run a Nissan Leaf, about the same as the cost of an efficient petrol driven car. Zap-Map’s own analysis suggests it will still be cheaper to run an electric vehicle than an equivalent petrol or diesel driven car.
Dale Vince enters his Nemesis car in the RAC Brighton to London Future Car challenge in Brighton
Dale Vince enters his Nemesis car in the RAC Brighton to London Future Car challenge in Brighton Credit: Christopher Pledger for the Telegraph

The RAC Foundation said increasing charging point prices could damage the ‘fragile’ electric vehicle sales. Electric cars are more expensive to buy and have a typical range of about 120 miles on a single charge. It typically takes 30 minutes to charge an electric car at a rapid charge point, compared to minutes at a petrol pump.

Of 32 million cars in the UK, currently only about 100,000 are ‘plug-in’.

Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “For people buying new cars, price dominates: the price of the vehicle and the price you pay to keep it on the road. Relatively small changes to either could badly stunt the fledgling industry’s growth.”

An Ecotricity spokesman said it was wrong to suggest that the change to the cost of charging was linked to investment in the football team - since both ventures currently lost money.

The spokesman said it was still much cheaper to charge a car at home and that using charging points inevitably cost more to pay for the infrastructure.
Mr Vince's company Ecotricity is based in Stroud
Mr Vince's company Ecotricity is based in Stroud Credit: rex

The spokesman said: “From Monday, the new tariff separates the cost of installing and operating the equipment from the cost of the energy – to provide greater transparency and flexibility to our members.

“It typically costs as much as £50,000 to install a fast charger, and this is often overlooked or not understood by people who feel it’s expensive too expensive to charge an EV [electric vehicle]. It’s always going to be more expensive to charge on the open road because the infrastructure must be built and maintained. Charging an EV at home will be cheaper and slower – so this is not an apples for apples comparison.”

A Department for Transport spokesman said: “We want to see a reliable and hassle-free public charging network and we closely monitor pricing to ensure it is not a barrier to people choosing an electric vehicle.

DALE Vince has responded to criticism over his plans to build a 100-acre sports and green technology hub near junction 13 of the M5.

Speaking to the BBC Radio Gloucestershire breakfast show presenter Mark Cummings, the Ecotricity founder acknowledged that while traffic was a concern, money would be spent on improving and redeveloping the A419, which would run through the middle of the £100 million site.

“I think it will be amazing thing for Stroud to have these state of the art sporting facilities and as well as the huge benefit from 4000 new jobs in green technology,” he said.

“There are traffic issues on the A419 near junction 13, there have been for years, so we are currently having a traffic study carried out.”

He argued the site would be able to cope with the influx of traffic adequately, and was ideally suited for transport links into Stroud.

Vince also responded to comments from residents in Eastington, who argued that development would ruin the rural face of their village and cause even more congestion.

Since the plans were revelaed in July a petition against Eco Park has gathered 400 signatures.

“I think it’s a bit of an exaggeration, Eco Park would actually be a mile away from the village and traffic won’t be going through it” he replied.

“I think it’s very normal there will be people that think it’s a good idea and some who think it’s a bad idea.

“But we’ve already seen some massive positivity – from Forest Green and around Stroud in general.”

Vince then hit back against criticism that it was “ironic” that an ecological technology company was building on green field sites and would potentially ruin the “gateway into Stroud”.

“This will be a very eco-friendly development, something that has never been seen before. It will have the feel of a park, with green spaces and sustainable buildings,” he said.

The Forest Green chairman added that the plans were still in the consultation phase, and the first planning application would be submitted in mid-October.

Ecotricity held the first of a series of drop-ins last week with fans at Forest Green Rovers (FGR), which has plans to build a new 5000-seater stadium at the site.

A second drop-in is being held today in Eastington Village Hall.

The final session on September 8 at Ecotricity’s Unicorn House on Russell Street, Stroud.

Vince has also pledged to create a nature reserve, and has expressed a desire to work with the Cotswold Canals Trust in their efforts to open up part of the 'missing mile' of the Stroudwater canal.

15 pictures from the opening of Keith Allen’s new nightclub in Stroud
Comments
Sort comments by
stewartwardrop 3rd September 2015 7:00 pm
Great idea - needs to support across the community.
Joined up thinking at last - bringing investment and jobs to the area in a sustainable way
From a Whitminster resident who totally supports this proposal.

Last Updated: 9th September 2015 7:35 pm
0
Salendine 3rd September 2015 7:34 pm
4,000 new jobs? What are all these people going to be doing, and how are they going to get out of the towns to this site? Do locals skill sets match what will be required by green technology companies or will the jobs be going to people out of town? Many questions yet to be answered.

Whilst it is planned to be on green land (rather than remediating brown field sites) it is still sounding like an ego trip. DV doesn't actually answer that question, but deflects it in the manner of a skilled politician.

Fair play for having a public debate. Will be interesting to hear the outcome.

Last Updated: 9th September 2015 7:35 pm
3
Sbak4287 6th September 2015 6:07 pm
Why is it that every interview I hear from Dale Vince, he's so defensive, patronising and inconsiderate of the local residents. I'm sure he wouldn't be happy about this being built on the back of his fort! To say this is a mile away from Eastington is a load of rubbish, this is being built IN Eastington, my parents home is right next to the field he wants to build on and I'm pretty sure last time I checked, their address stated Eastington in it, or do these residents not matter?! Why do you want to destroy one of the very few rural villages left in Gloucestershire for the sake of unnecessary building developments and sports facilities. We already have a sports field in Eastington! Or has that been overlooked too? 4000 jobs? I'd like to see a listing to prove that this isn't just a figure that's been plucked out of the air.. And the already heavily congested roads leading to that site are just going to become constant standstill traffic areas. Finally in the recent interview with BBC Gloucestershire, Dale was very defensive about the development being described as concreting over green land, of course you are concreting over green land, or are you expecting your staff and football fans to park in a field? We don't NEED this development at all! But that's just my opinion...

Last Updated: 20th September 2015 7:33 pm
5
a-bomberg 6th September 2015 10:56 pm
"4000 new jobs" total lies.... Its a trading estate where 4000 people could work. So, what that relates to in real terms is existing companies moving to this site. The job creation will not be 4000, new jobs may only be 10-25% at best I would expect.

The green energy giant first revealed plans for the £100m Eco park, which will be situated in Eastington just of J13 of the M5, back in 2015.

Original designs included state-of-the-arts sporting facilities, including a 5,000-capacity all-seater stadium for Forest Green Rovers (FGR), indoor and outdoor training fields, athletics and rugby fields and a sports science hub.

While the other half of Eco Park would include a green technology business park, with sustainably built commercial offices and light industrial units, which Ecotricity said could create up to 4,000 new jobs.

Since the idea first came to fruition there have been subtle changes to the original Eco Park and Mr Vince is now set to make more changes.

On his Facebook page Mr Vince said: “We’re just a few days away now from submitting revised plans for Eco Park, with all development on the north side and no green tech business park to try and break the log jam.”

The image of the proposed plans was also posted on Facebook and once again public opinion was divided.

Billy Marler commented: “Looks fantastic, Dale. Want you to know that your vision for FGR and your hard work hasn't gone unnoticed. You're doing some great stuff and it's appreciated by people around the world.

Martin Wyman believed the Eco Park will be a huge positive for the people of Gloucestershire.

He said: “It’s fantastic Dale that someone in our area wants to build this for our community, will be a great asset for generations to come.”

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